Why we are fighting for a 15% pay rise for NHS workers
We spoke to Louise Maclean, a registered nurse from Inverness, about the fight for a 15% wage rise being demanded by NHS workers. Louise was one of the organisers of the recent pay protest in Inverness.
Why are you campaigning for a 15% pay rise?
The average nurse in the NHS has had a pay decrease of 20% in the last 10 years. With constant pay freezes and pay caps, NHS staff are struggling to provide for their families. I’ve heard a lot about the apparent pay rise we had in 2018 but I think what people don’t realise is that the pay rise of 9% over three years was actually still a pay cut from the fact that our wages are down by 31% since 2010. As nurses, we want pay parity with those public sectors workers, such as teachers, who also went to university to study for their profession. We need to work with our unions and make sure that our next pay deal does not fall short of what we deserve.
I’d also like to highlight that while we are protesting for a pay raise for all NHS staff, from Band 1- 7, this wage rise supports more than just recognising NHS staff and their contributions during Covid-19. We have a real issue with both retention and recruitment of nurses within the NHS. Nurses emigrate overseas to earn wages that recognise their skills and the private companies lure away the newly qualified.
We need the NHS to be a workplace that recognises the effort and skills of its staff. We need to have decent wages to retain staff so that they do not leave. There are currently over 44,000 nursing vacancies in England alone. The burden of this, on the staff who still must work without adequate nursing ratios, decimates the workforce by increasing sick time and decreases retention of staff. We need our staff to be paid appropriately, stay working in our NHS and not to be lured to the private sector, as that will make it all the easier for the private firms to buy off our NHS. We must keep our NHS a public service!
How has the experience of the Covid pandemic been for you and NHS workers?
Throughout the pandemic, NHS staff have stood up and put themselves on the frontline of a virus that nobody knew anything about. Some staff have been redeployed to areas they have very little training in and have only thrived with the support of their new colleagues but this is an extremely stressful situation to be in; to want to help and provide care where you are most required but also recognise that you have minimal training in these new assigned roles and must re-educate and update your skills in a very short space of time.
My colleagues with families and children have also shared with me that they were extremely scared of putting them at risk. They wanted to care for their patients and do their job to the best of their ability but they worried, every day, about taking the virus home to their loved ones.
Were there/are there enough resources for the NHS to cope?
Resources of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) were short in the hospital throughout the first wave of Covid-19. With a worldwide requirement, it was tricky for any hospitals to get what they required to protect their staff. We were lucky that many local contracting and building businesses in Inverness and Dingwall stepped up and provided PPE to local hospitals.
The contractors from my hometown near Poolewe, Aultbea and Gairloch also sent through a carload! It was great that people stepped up to help us, but ultimately, they should not have had to. I recognise that there was a worldwide need for the PPE but reading now about all the failed contracts and billions spent by the Westminster Government on firms that sometimes had no experience or history in providing PPE, is embarrassing. I hope lessens have been learnt and that we will not be put in that position again for the second wave.
You were involved in organising a protest in Inverness for a 15% pay rise for NHS workers – can you tell me how that came about?
I had been extremely hurt by the government deciding to recognise only certain public sectors workers for their efforts during the pandemic. The teachers, doctors and dentists all deserved their wage rise but to miss out the paramedics, nurses, porters, cleaners, and everyone that held the hospital together during the pandemic is disgraceful. I read that there were plans being put into place for protests around the UK and thought that I would like to attend one.
The closest protest seemed to be in Glasgow and although I desperately wanted to go and support it, I was studying at the time and was due to hand in a lot of university coursework and I was reluctant to spend a whole day away from my studies. Mary Dawson (the other Inverness organiser) had written a comment to say that it would be nice if there was something further North, I had ‘liked’ it and Mary got in touch to ask would I be interested in organising a protest for Inverness with her. I have zero experience in organising anything like this, so I was really nervous but I felt it necessary as there was no point complaining about something if I wasn’t happy to step up and do something about it.
What do you think needs to be the next steps for the pay campaign? What should the NHS trade unions be doing?
There were over 36 NHS protests throughout Scotland, Wales and England on the 8th of August. With over 83,000 members on our NHS Workers say No to Public Sector Pay Inequality group, we all need to stand together and continue to support local protests and marches in the future.
I would ask the unions to come together, to support us in our cause and to unify their motions by asking for a 15% pay increase for all NHS staff. We would ask that they immediately reopen the pay talks and demand the reinstatement of yearly annual increments.
We would also ask that they coordinate between the healthcare unions and engage in campaigns and call for mass actions including lobbying, socially distanced protests and initiate a ballot for industrial action if the government do not listen to us.
